A Rights group has requested the Federal government
and Economic Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) to investigate the alleged
corruption and impunity ongoing at the Nigeria Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA)
port Onitsha.
Scores of the right group supporters trooped to
the Onitsha river port extensions, to protest what they described as an art of
impunity exhibited by an individual, who trades, collect levies on behalf of
port authority, evict traders and demolished shops contracted out by acting as the
agent to the port authority.
Addressing journalists at the NIWA Onitsha port
entrance gate, the leader of the human right group, Dede Uzor-Dede lamented
that the businessman does whatever he likes with the federal government
property claiming to be acting on behalf of the port authority.
The right group demands for an urgent probe into
the man’s activities as agent to the port authority as well as asking FG to revoke
the man’s right as the sole facilitator who decides who erect shops on whose
authority levies are paid without recourse to due process being preached by the
president Muhammandu Buhari led administration.
Efforts to speak with the NIWA port director Onitsha
Uche Amadi was futile as she decline comment on camera, affirmed that decisions
made by NIWA was in best interest of the port and for the protection of the country’s
facility.
It would be recalled that the new NIWA Managing
director, Senator Olorunnibe Mamora recently visited the facility, promised to effect
a turnaround change that will revive the port authority.
He lamented that the River Niger was built in
1983, commissioned in 2012 but yet to come up stream to serve as the viable
alternative to other major sea ports in Nigeria, adding that most imported good
items that enter the country find its way into Onitsha markets..
Bamidele Ajayi, Onitsha, Anambra State
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